


undo this storm and wait

by copperiisulfate



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 13:07:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7509553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperiisulfate/pseuds/copperiisulfate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>You are great,</i> he thinks. <i>Great in the way that never ends well. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	undo this storm and wait

 

 _You are great_ , he thinks.  _Great in the way that never ends well._

And Keith hates that he can feel it like a thorn in his lungs, slicing through his every breath. There's an ache that comes with loving Shiro, sharp at times but otherwise dull, persistent. It was there long before Kerberos because, in his heart of hearts, Keith always knew that there would always be something or other; if it wasn’t the Kerberos expedition then it would have been something else. That’s what happened with people like Shiro. They didn’t just sit and settle and wait for dust to collect. They became heroes and legends and gladiators and champions, became stardust and eventually statues and stories passed down the generations.  

These days, Kerberos was replaced by  _Voltron,_  by the fight and duty. The Black Paladin was the first to rise and the last to rest and, with the weight of worlds upon worlds on his shoulders, who could blame him?

 

*

 

“Somehow, we will figure it out. Together,” Shiro says to the stars. “We’ve managed it before.” 

Keith doesn’t know if Shiro is saying it to him, to himself, or to everyone, even though it’s late and the others are in bed. Keith also doesn’t always know if they will necessarily figure it out, just as Keith doesn’t know how the burn within his lungs, behind his eyes, in the back of his throat will ever go away. If it ever will.

 _Before_  was a lifetime ago and Shiro’s arm didn’t glow or cut through aliens and they couldn’t telepathically communicate with  _robotic lions_  then so no, Keith doesn’t think he knows anything anymore.

 _Not that it changes anything,_  a part of him says, small but insistent.  _Shiro is still Shiro_ and all that matters is that Keith trusts him, has always, will always, quicker than lightspeed.

Still, a part of him is tired and selfish and wishes there was no greatness, just them and the stars. 

But that's a child's wish and impractical at best and he knows this and knows this. He's better now than he used to be,  _has had to be_ , and tries not to think about how much of that must have been Shiro's doing as well. 

This is already more than he could have asked for, with his face in his hands in the middle of a desert, promising to the stars that he’d do  _anything, anything_ , if only he could bring back the dead.

And now that his dead stands before him, he’s being outright thankless and he knows this. 

Before, it had been unthinkable to even get past the first thought.

 _What would I do if I saw you again?_

_Everything,_ he had thought back then, desperately, ferociously. _All at once; everything._

Except: he’s still all cowardice and hesitation. 

Now, it's all the more jarring to think that Shiro had ever left, that there had ever been a rift of time and space between them, so vast and incomprehensible. It’s made no better by the realization that there was  _so much_  that Keith could never know or imagine about what made up Takashi Shirogane in the here and now.

 

* 

 

“How much do you remember?” It's intrusive as all hell but they were friends at least if nothing else. Shiro doesn’t owe him anything but Keith owes it to him to ask, to not shy away from however hard it may be to bear it. 

“Bits and pieces,” Shiro says, shrugs like it’s something light. “Something usually has to happen to bring something back.”

Keith feels the age old exasperation rise up inside at the ease with which Shiro does  _every goddamned thing_ , and contemplating his trauma seems to have made the list. 

“Thanks, Keith,” he says, “for being here.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Keith says, and can’t go beyond that. He’s already feigned far more courage than he actually possesses and his stores are running low. He’d once kidded himself into thinking he could have been endlessly brave, with Shiro, for Shiro, but he also used to think a great number of ridiculous things back then, like they’d always be together, like it would be _easy_.

Shiro says nothing, just smiles an old, soft smile between them, if a little tighter around the edges.

Keith still can’t breathe quite right. 

 

*

 

The Black Lion undergoes extensive repairs after a particularly ugly Galra battle and Keith convinces Allura to unlock the higher training levels. He spars with the damned gladiator robot until he’s breathless, sore and spent.

He's never been good with his rage at the universe, always displaced, better out than in, and even that was something Shiro had taught him to work on. To be fair, for the longest time, he’d wanted nothing more than to settle a score with the universe for taking away everything that mattered to him, piece by piece. 

(“I would hate to see you kicked out of here if it was preventable,” __Shiro had said back at the Garrison after yet another suspension some years ago.

And well, it was only a matter of time.) 

Keith had pictured Shiro's frown when he'd last walked out of the Garrison. Even then, the image that came intuitively wasn’t one of disappointment, just loss.

 _There’s no point,_  Keith had thought, cursing at the desert sky, the stars above and all.  _No point in any of it without you._

And some things didn't change.

 

*

 

"You said earlier that something usually has to happen to bring something back. And well, I know this isn’t news to you because it was what they told everyone but I still can’t wrap my head around it. I thought you were dead,” he says, for the first time out loud, a hollowness in his voice, purposeful absence of emotion. 

It would ring aloud in his head still sometimes, quieter now than it had been the first little while after he'd found Shiro, less angry now, more tired. 

“I’m sorry,” Shiro says and Keith feels himself getting even more upset at that. 

 _Of course that’s what you’d say,_  he thinks.  _You’re sorry for suffering._

Shiro says, “You asked me what I remembered and it still isn’t much but I remember missing you, wanting to see you again.”

And Keith feels his insides twist and wants to shake him  _and shake him_  although he knows it's not anyone's fault.

 _You missed me from somewhere in outer space,_  Keith thinks wildly.  _Meanwhile, I thought you were dead. Did you know what that was like?_

“I’m sorry I left,” Shiro says. “Sorry everything happened the way it did. Sorry I hurt you. Never meant to but it still happened.”

“You did what you were meant to do. Besides, you couldn’t have known,” Keith says, his voice and composure and entirety fraying. He doesn’t know what he wants. He wants to be vicious, vindictive, but again, always, it’s misdirected. The last thing he wants is Shiro’s apologies and Shiro’s guilt. 

“It was a risk we took,” Shiro says. “I knew that.”

“I don’t mean the expedition--that’s not--” Keith doesn’t know what he wants except there’s only ever been one thing he wanted and would fight the ends of the universe to keep. It was just his own dumb luck that this person who was his home was also destined for more. “You didn’t know--" he feels almost frantic. " _You couldn’t have--_ ”

“Of course, I knew," Shiro sighs. "And I loved you back. It was just never the right time.”

Keith chokes out a laugh, because what else is there to do but laugh at how ridiculous it all has ended up being and he's spent so long knowing but not knowing and-- “Will there ever be?” 

“Yes,” says Shiro, drawing him into his arms, grip tightening as Keith takes what feels like his first real breath since the takeoff to Kerberos. “Yes, there will.”

 _Just for a bit,_ thinks Keith, feeling endlessly, endlessly selfish but not quite able to care, _don't move. Stay still. Just for a second, don’t be a hero, a warrior, a shooting star. Just for a fraction of a moment, be mine, and let me hang on._

And, for a little longer than a fraction of a moment, Shiro is and Shiro does.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'thousand eyes' by of monsters and men. space kids have ruined my life send help. i don't actually know what i'm doing.


End file.
